As we enter November, thoughts naturally turn to Black Friday and Amazon.com have just announced 50 days of Black Friday deals making what started out as a one day event sales event longer than ever before for 2017.
50 Days of Amazon.com Black Friday Deals
Amazon.com’s Black Friday Deals Store is now live (We’re still waiting for Amazon UK Black Friday deals to kick off) and offers deals across every category now through Black Friday. Customers can find deals on everything from toys and electronics to holiday entertaining essentials and wardrobe must haves.
“We’re excited to officially kickoff another holiday season, bringing customers better deals than ever before on everything they’ll need – from electronics and toys to clothing, home essentials and more.”
– Doug Herrington, Senior Vice President of North American Retail at Amazon
Amazon Black Friday video
MetaPack Peak Profile Index
Increased volumes and a demand to continue offering varied, flexible delivery options is likely to put pressure on retailers, brands and carriers during Peak 2017 according to MetaPack who track peak shipping volumes each year.
MetaPack are predicting higher demand from overseas buyers than ever before, less tolerance for longer or imprecise delivery time-frames and an expectation that retailers will still be able to fulfil options such as try-before-you-buy, delivery to neighbour and in-flight changes. The ability to support these at such a busy time will entirely depend on pre-agreed commitments between retailers and carriers as well as outside forces, such as weather conditions.
“In line with annual trends and based on the delivery volumes we are seeing currently, we anticipate a growth of around 20% from now until the end of the first week in January. Obviously this will come in peaks, which, apart from slight changes due to Christmas Day falling on a Monday, will be in line with 2016.”
– Bruce Fair, Chief Revenue Officer at MetaPack
MetaPack track the delivery volume changes as we move through the peak period with particular emphasis on parcel volumes every Monday. Currently it can be seen that parcel volumes for 017 are largely tracking inline with 2015 and 2016 but expect the drop off at Christmas to be slightly earlier due to Christmas falling on the Monday.
A separate Carrier Performance Heat Map illustrates how the top 10 UK carriers are performing in the run up to Christmas.
